Martin Bowman - Sepecat jaguar;tactical support & maritime strike fighter

The Jaguars Finest Hour, Gulf War 1991. These Desert Cats are armed with overwing AIM-9L Sidewinders and a CRV-7 rocket pod under the starboard wing. (Mike Rondot)

First published in Great Britain in 2007 by
Pen & Sword Aviation
An imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

Copyright Martin W. Bowman, 2007

Colour Profiles Dave Windle 2007

ISBN: 978 1 84415 545 3
PDF ISBN: 978 1 47387 852 5
EPUB ISBN: 978 1 47387 851 8
PRC ISBN: 978 1 47387 850 1

The right of Martin W. Bowman to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library

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Acknowledgements

I am most grateful to the following, all of whom very kindly supplied photos and/or information for this book: Squadron Leader Dave Bagshaw, AFC; Chris Bennett; Squadron Leader Ed Bulpett; Mick Cartwright; Roger Cook; Mick Jennings MBE, who for many years opened many doors for a series of memorable visits to RAF Coltishall and who supplied many photos for this book; Dick Jeeves, Steve Jefferson; Bill Johns; Steven Hill; Colonel Bruno Maurice, Minstre de la Dfense, Republic Franaise; Bernard Noble and his son Kevin Noble who very graciously allowed me to quote freely from their family bible Noble Endeavours; Gary Parsons; Group Captain William Pixton DFC AFC; Rolls-Royce; Mike Rondot; Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup GCB AFC ADC BSc FRAeS FCMI; Group Captain Edward Stringer BSc; Squadron Leader Johnny Stringer; the late Tom Trower and Denis Calvert.

Time to Reflect. GR.3A XZ117/FB after a downpour at Coltishall on 1 April 2006. (Author)

Contents

Jaguars on the production line at BACs Military Aircraft Division at Warton near Blackpool, Lancashire, in March 1973. On the left is XX111 with a partially camouflaged rear fuselage, with XX112 and XX113/PS606 behind. On the right a Model B can be seen on the line. On 30 May 1973 Squadron Leader John Preece delivered XX111 to the Jaguar Operational Conversion Unit (JOCU) at RAF Lossiemouth on the Moray Firth in Scotland for ground crew training. The aircraft was also used later by the Indian Air Force. Eighteen years later XX112 formed part of the initial deployment to Oman. XX113 was issued to 226 OCU and was lost in a crash on 17 July 1981. (BAC)

CHAPTER ONE

Entente Cordiale?

The six Jaguars of 6 Squadron are cruising east to their target at 500 mph, 190 ft above the undulating ground of central Bulgaria. The formation is in card, each pair of aircraft two miles line abreast and thirty seconds spaced from the other pairs. Five minutes ago Number 2 had defeated an SA-8 surface-to-air missile system that had attempted to engage him; his Radar Warning Receiver had alerted him to the danger and he had kicked the rest of the formation away from the threat. Suddenly, an urgent voice breaks the silence on the Jaguars chat frequency: Boxer, duck! Single MiG, Blacks 6, two miles, high to low. The jets descend to 100 ft and accelerate to 550 mph. Even so, the MiG continues to close towards the front pair of Jaguars; the pilot of the front left jet pulls the throttles back, and breaks hard into the MiG, closing the range rapidly and simultaneously putting out flares to defeat any infra-red missile shot. Meanwhile, unsighted to the MiG, one of the middle pair of Jags has closed to missile range and has locked the Bandit up with his AIM 9L Sidewinder air-to-air missile. Slew good tone uncage valid track Fox 2, MiG, Bull 120, 37

Squadron Leader Johnny Stringer

Although the above belongs to a (very) distant element of the Clancey school of military writing, says Stringer, the events described definitely belong in the realm of fact. The only difference is that when these words were written they referred not to an undeclared Cold War combat by NATO forces but to a visit in August 2002 to Graf Ignatievo Air Base, Bulgaria, by RAF Jaguars. The Flying Canopeners were thus the first RAF fast-jet squadron to operate with the Bulgarski Voenno-Vazdushni Sili (Bulgarian Air Force, or BVVS) since the end of the Cold War.

The first steps that ultimately led to this scenario occurred some fifty years earlier, when the document creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was signed in Washington DC on 4 April 1949 by ten European countries, including Great Britain, France, Canada and the United States of America. From 1939 to 1945 Europe was ravaged by six years of war, and the Soviet Union was fast emerging as a threat to the uneasy post-war peace after strengthening its hold over the eastern European states liberated from Nazi Germany. The first steps to words establishing an alliance of free nations occurred in January 1948, when the British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, proposed a Western European Union. Just two months later, on 17 March, Britain, France, and the Benelux countries signed an agreement in Brussels, and then in June the Soviets began their blockade of West Berlin. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed the first Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) in December 1950, and his headquarters at Rocquencourt near Paris became operational on 2 April 1951, designated Supreme HQ Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE). Enormous numbers of American ground and air forces began arriving in Europe to strengthen those of the Western democracies, and on 5 May 1955 West Germany became the thirteenth NATO member.

One of the biggest dividends received by America was the supply of American-built military jets to the European air arms. Republic fighterbombers, Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighters and collaborative projects such as the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter (and much later, the General Dynamics F-16), were built in huge numbers and used to equip several NATO air forces. The one exception was France, which had never purchased American military hardware to any great degree and on 10 March 1966 announced its intention to leave the military structure of NATO at the end of the year. All Allied units were forced to withdraw from French soil and SACEUR moved its HQ to Belgium. France was put into cold storage, and in 1968 a British initiative resulted in the creation of the Eurogroup, which was composed of all European members except France and Iceland. Eurogroups aim was to strengthen members contributions to NATO by collective policies and efforts. Despite national ambitions and divisions and lingering political differences, NATO successfully prevented all-out war in Europe during the remaining fifty years of the twentieth century and afterwards. Politically, Britain and France were poles apart, and relations were not helped by President Charles de Gaulles decision to block Britains entry into the Common Market (now the European Union). However, before the swinging sixties had passed into history the two countries had reached agreement on two highly successful collaborative projects that resulted in the supersonic passenger transport and the Jaguar combat aircraft being built in France and Britain.